me, a flavor
Why read? I would read more writers our age if i didnt think half of them just wanted to be clever. Clever: worded demonstrations of special wit and insight and charm - or whatever other sordid motivation makes someone not only write but stand up with the whole "look at me/look at me" of publishing. A sort of ornamentation, a marked flavoring of the work, presenting it as, say off-beat, exotic, outlandish, etc., but always very very me, a flavor you should remember.
if you remember the dead milkmen lines: "You know that carnival comes into town every year? Well this year they came through with a ridecalled The Mixer. The man said, "Keep your head, and arms, insidethe Mixer at all times." But Bill Jr, he was a DAAAREDEVIL, justlike his old man. He was leaning out saying "Hey everybody,Look at me! Look at me!" Pow! He was decapitated! They found his head over by the snow cone concession." then you're right here with me.
But, unlike the commercials, it took me several minutes to actually find and pull up those lyrics. But then again, this is 64Ram dinosaur.
Cleverness. It reminds me of ad agencies. Attempts at being noticed, noticeable, pretty enough, strong enough, distinctive enough. Branding, and the desperation and sense of fear that surrounds/underlies that. The need to MAKE IT, or face oblivion and failure trying.
I'm not advocating faceless conformity here, either. Just looking at what gets in the way of work (incl., notably, mine) and ends up disfiguring it. another way to look at this is to note that cleverness itselfis occasional, effortless, a flourish of mastery. what I am talking about is work that tries to be clever, and muddies itself up with all the effort and makeup required to attempt to convey/mimic/forge cleverness. Which is rarely clever. writing to impress is the most writing most revolting to read. Revolting, or sad, or comic. Or not or. The amazing things we choose to do with our days, even the mundane ones.
Actually, I wirte this in the declining energy of mid-afternoon, after lunch, still artificially lit at work, and having erased everything else I thought to write today. The clever may plague me, but the effortless evades me (another sort of plague?). Head down, returning to data entry. (look how negative this post is. i need a new job)
if you remember the dead milkmen lines: "You know that carnival comes into town every year? Well this year they came through with a ridecalled The Mixer. The man said, "Keep your head, and arms, insidethe Mixer at all times." But Bill Jr, he was a DAAAREDEVIL, justlike his old man. He was leaning out saying "Hey everybody,Look at me! Look at me!" Pow! He was decapitated! They found his head over by the snow cone concession." then you're right here with me.
But, unlike the commercials, it took me several minutes to actually find and pull up those lyrics. But then again, this is 64Ram dinosaur.
Cleverness. It reminds me of ad agencies. Attempts at being noticed, noticeable, pretty enough, strong enough, distinctive enough. Branding, and the desperation and sense of fear that surrounds/underlies that. The need to MAKE IT, or face oblivion and failure trying.
I'm not advocating faceless conformity here, either. Just looking at what gets in the way of work (incl., notably, mine) and ends up disfiguring it. another way to look at this is to note that cleverness itselfis occasional, effortless, a flourish of mastery. what I am talking about is work that tries to be clever, and muddies itself up with all the effort and makeup required to attempt to convey/mimic/forge cleverness. Which is rarely clever. writing to impress is the most writing most revolting to read. Revolting, or sad, or comic. Or not or. The amazing things we choose to do with our days, even the mundane ones.
Actually, I wirte this in the declining energy of mid-afternoon, after lunch, still artificially lit at work, and having erased everything else I thought to write today. The clever may plague me, but the effortless evades me (another sort of plague?). Head down, returning to data entry. (look how negative this post is. i need a new job)
posted by Kyle at 2:19 PM
3 Comments:
no. i don't know if i said this well - and its funny you mention Pope, I always imagien Charles Bernstein as a modern Pope, but from the left - but it is not so much cleverness, which as you point out can be delightful, as the apparent necessity of cleverness, the ad agency DRIVE/DEMAND for it. Make sense? Being clever is a fine option, or flavor, but - how to say - i feel a real "makeup on empty space" job here, where much cleverness is so many band-aids or maskings of some unexplored, unworded silence. It springs out of the head, while the heart is absent. This off-balance I do not enjoy or trust, it depresses me.
All that said, I have no particular desire to resurrect yesters mid-afternoon slump argument against it, and if you want to fly the cleverness flag (not at all the same as irony - cleverness maybe implying a certain pose of blase jadedness, where as irony can bed downnicely with wonder and savage scorn) - go for it.
I think you have a good response here, one I enjoyed reading. The work in particular I am thinking of is in a lot of ezines of the under-40 set. JWG sent me urls to a few, and I bounced around but kept getting ejected from the work, even from the mission statements - i definitely feel some of McSweeney's suffers from this too - I don't think I want romantic confessionalism, but i do value art as work, and i think one needs choose their projects carefully - what are we building? I like best a makeup job that the wearer ENJOYS smearing, not one I am to take as their better, sunday-suit face (as if w/o is somehow deficient - its the sense that so much of this springs from some deficient unsaid that really bugs me, the whole :should" of not jsut cleverness, but much "bad" writing in general. I wish I could make sense.
re-read my post. Yes - work that feels it NEEDS to be clever. which denies freedom. Pope, Bernstein, etc. - there there is a delight in cleverness, a real fluency and ironic recasting of worlds there. At the end of the day I like magic/juice, etc., which i closely associate with freedom - work willing and able to accept and utilize its essential limitless possibility on and off page.
Getitng off that pane feels a little woozy: where was I just then?
Isn't it only cleverness if you get caught? I thought that was the rule.
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